The IP Multimedia Core Network Subsystem (IMS) is an IP-based network architecture proposed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which constructs an opening and flexible service environment; the IMS supports multimedia applications and is capable of providing abundant multimedia services for a user.
In an IMS service system, a control layer is separated from a service layer; the control layer does not provide a specific service and only provides necessary functions such as triggering, routing and charging, for the service layer.
Service triggering and control functions in the control layer are implemented by a Call Session Control Function (CSCF). The call session control function may be classified into three types, namely, a Proxy Call Session Control Function (P-CSCF), an Interrogating Call Session Control Function (I-CSCF) and a Serving Call Session Control Function (S-CSCF), wherein the S-CSCF plays a leading role and the I-CSCF is optional.
The service layer is composed of a series of Application Servers (ASs), and is capable of providing specific services, and an AS can be an independent entity or exists in the S-CSCF.
The control layer (S-CSCF) controls the service triggering according to subscription information of a user and calls a service on the AS to realize service functions. All the ASs and the S-CSCFs can be called Server Equipment (SE).
An End-to-end equipment in a session is called a User Equipment (UE), which is in charge of interaction with the user; some UEs have a plurality of way for accessing to a network, such as accessing the network through a 3GPP Packet Switch (PS) domain, accessing the network through another non-3GPP PS domain, accessing the network through a circuit switch (CS) domain or the like.
If a CS network is configured with an enhanced Mobile Switch Center (eMSC), and a Session Initial Protocol (SIP) interface is provided by the eMSC to perform interaction with an IMS network, then interaction between the IMS network and the CS network can be implemented through the eMSC.
For the UE with a plurality of accessing ways, if the UE can only use one accessing way at a certain time, in a case that the UE is performing a certain service, such as a call in one accessing way and then the UE moves to another place and needs to change the accessing way, the UE and the network has an ability to provide a certain strategy, which makes that the service which is performing by the UE would not be interrupted; and this kind of ability is called single radio terminal voice call continuity, which is called Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC) for short.
FIG. 1 shows a diagram of single radio voice call continuity, which describes a signaling path and a media path for session establishment between a single radio terminal UE-1 and an IMS terminal UE-2, as well as the signaling path and media path of the UE-1 and the UE-2 after the single radio terminal call continuity occurs; in order to simplify the diagram and description, the S-CSCF and a Service Continuity AS (SC AS) are drawn as a single entity, and a SIP protocol based on an IMS standard is used for communication between the S-CSCF and the SC AS.
A session between the UE-1 and the UE-2 is established before the single radio voice call continuity occurs, and the signaling path of the session is described as follows:
A102: the signaling path between the UE-1 and the P-CSCF, through which the UE-1 and the P-CSCF communicate with each other based on the SIP protocol of the IMS; for the SC AS, the signaling path is an access leg path;
A104: the signaling path between the P-CSCF and the SC AS/S-CSCF, through which the P-CSCF and the SC AS/S-CSCF communicate with each other based on the SIP protocol of the IMS; for the SC AS, the signaling path is also an access leg path;
R101: the signaling path between the SC AS/S-CSCF and the UE-2, through which the SC AS/S-CSCF and the UE-2 communicate with each other based on the SIP protocol of the IMS; for the SC AS, the signaling path is a remote leg path;
After the single radio voice call continuity occurs, the signaling path and the media path between the UE-1 and the UE-2 changes, wherein the changed signaling path is described as follows:
A112: the signaling path between the UE-1 and the eMSC, through which the UE-1 and the eMSC communicate with each other based on the signaling protocol of the CS domain; for the SC AS, the signaling path is an access leg path;
A114: the signaling path between the eMSC and the SC AS/S-CSCF, through which the eMSC and the SC AS/S-CSCF communicate with each other through the SIP protocol of the IMS; for the SC AS, the signaling path is also an access leg path;
R101: the signaling path between the SC AS/S-CSCF and the UE-2, through which the SC AS/S-CSCF and the UE-2 communicate with each other based on the SIP protocol of the IMS; for the SC AS, the signaling path is a remote leg path, which does not change after the single radio voice call continuity occurs.
FIG. 2 shows an architecture diagram of the existing single radio voice call continuity; in order to realize the single radio voice call continuity, a variety of related parts or network elements, which participate in realizing the single radio voice call continuity, of the network, and the interfaces or connection relationships between the parts or the network elements, and the details are as follows:
Descriptions of Related Network Elements:
UE: a user terminal equipment with single radio voice call continuity ability;
CS network: a network providing conventional CS service for a user;
PS network: a network providing PS service for the user;
eMSC: an enhanced mobile switch center, which processes the handover request transmitted by the PS network, performs an inter-domain transferring of a session, correlates a CS handover operation and an inter-domain transferring operation, and the like;
IMS network: a network providing an IMS service for the user, which includes the SC AS
Descriptions of Related Interfaces:
S202: an air interface between the UE and the CS network, which implements the information interaction between the UE and the CS network, such as a standard Um interface;
S204: an interface between the CS network and the eMSC, which varies depending on connected specific network elements; the interface between the eMSC and the base station subsystem is a standard Iu-CS interface; the interfaces between the eMSC and other mobile switch centers are standard inter-office signaling interfaces, e.g. an E interface and a Nc interface;
A112 in FIG. 1 interacts with the eMSC through S202 and S204 as described above.
S206: an air interface between the UE and the PS network, which realizes the information interaction between the UE and the PS network, such as a standard Uu interface;
S208: a signaling interface between the PS network and the eMSC, which provides support for inter-domain switch and is a standard Sv interface;
S210: a signaling interface between the UE and the IMS network, such as a standard Gm interface, which bears signaling transmission through data generated by the interface S208;
A102 in FIG. 1 interacts with the IMS network through S210.
S212: a signaling path between the eMSC and the IMS network, which may either be a standard I2 interface between the eMSC and the IMS network which is based on SIP protocol of the IMS, or be composed by connection of a standard Nc interface between the eMSC and the media gateway and a standard Mg interface between the media gateway and the IMS network; wherein in the latter case, a media gateway translates a message on the Nc interface into an SIP message of the IMS or conversely translates the messages; the Nc interface is based on an SIP protocol (i.e. Nc-SIP), or based on an ISUP protocol (i.e. Nc-ISUP); although the Nc-SIP is based on SIP protocol as well as the I2 interface, the protocols only provide the format of messages and the content of the messages is determined by an application; the use of I2 interface indicates that the eMSC supports an application related to the IMS; and the use of Nc-SIP interface indicates that the eMSC supports an application related to the conventional CS.
FIG. 3 shows a flowchart of an existing method for realizing single radio voice call continuity, in which a process is described: an IMS session between a UE-1 and a UE-2 is established so as to establish an IMS media connection path; the IMS media connection path is composed of a media connection between the UE and the PS network and a media connection between the PS network and the UE-2; after the single radio voice call continuity of the UE-1 occurs, the UE-1 and the network enable the UE-1 to established the media connection by using the CS domain and maintain the continuity of the original session. The process includes the following steps:
step 301: the UE-1 transmits a measuring report to the PS network serving the UE-1 through the interface S204 between the UE-1 and the PS network, to report signal intensity measuring information of a cell;
step 302: the PS network serving the UE-1 (original PS network) determines that an adjacent CS networks is more suitable for serving the UE-1 according to the signal intensity information of the cells in the measuring report, and then decides to perform the handover operation;
step 303: a corresponding network element in the original PS network, such as a Mobile Management Entity (MME), transmits a handover request, such as a HANDOVER REQUEST message, to the eMSC through the interface S210 between the PS network and the eMSC; the message includes number information of the UE-1 and number information which is obtained through a Home Subscriber Server (HSS) by the PS network and is configured to identify a service continuity request;
step 304: the eMSC prepares media link resource for a target CS network according to the standard CS handover process;
step 305: after the CS handover process is completed, the eMSC transmits a handover response message, such as a HANDOVER RESPONSE message, to the PS network through the S210 interface;
step 306: the PS network transmits a handover command message to the UE-1 through the interface S204 after receiving the handover response message, and informs the UE-1 to hand over to the CS domain;
step 307: the UE-1 receives the handover command and adjusts the access mode to be accessing the CS domain.
So far, the CS media connection path between the UE-1 and the eMSC is established, which is composed of the CS media connection between the UE-1 and the CS network and the CS media connection between the CS network and the eMSC.
The following steps occur after step 303 and do not have ordinal relation with steps 304-307;
step 308: the eMSC transmits a handover request to the SC AS after receiving the handover request message from PS network; the request, such as an INVITE message of the SIP or an Initial Address Message (IAM) of the ISUP, is transmitted through the signaling path of S212; and all the messages are INVITE messages when arriving at the SC AS after transmitting through some network elements; the handover request includes number information of the UE-1 and number information of the SC AS, wherein the number information of the SC AS is used as information of a callee (this kind of INVITE message including the number information of the SC AS as information of the callee is considered as a handover request message by the SC AS), and number information of the UE-1 is used as information of a caller;
step 309: the SC AS finally receives the SIP INVITE message of the IMS which is forwarded by CSCF, determines that it is a service continuity request according to the information of the callee and then searches out the on-going call correlated with the current call according to the information of the caller;
step 310: the SC AS transmits an update request of the IMS, such as an UPDATE message or a re-INVITE message, through the CSCF on a signaling path of the correlated on-going call;
step 311: the UE-2 receives the update message, responding an update agreement message of the IMS, for example transmitting a 200 OK message;
step 312: the SC AS receives the update agreement message forwarded by the CSCF, transmits a handover acknowledgement message, such as a 200 OK message, to the eMSC through signaling path of S212; the eMSC may finally receive a 200 OK message of the SIP, or an ANM message(acknowledgement message) of the ISUP.
So far, a new media path between the eMSC and the UE-2 is established; the eMSC connects the newly established media path with the CS media path, to enable the UE-1 to communicate with the UE-2 continually.
As mentioned, the update operation of the remote leg is needed in steps 310-311 in existing method for realizing single radio voice call continuity; the time delay of the IMS signaling transmission is long and the period of time for the UE to hand over from the PS domain to the CS domain is short, thus it is still needed to wait for a long period of time to complete establishing the new media path after establishing the CS media, which causes an overlong interruption of communication.